I didn't realize how hard it is to run a business!!! :-)

Kayalana99

Hiya guys.

Any advice is appreciated even if its not relevant to my post.

Basically I am a young female with 2 children under 2 and recently started up a business on Ebay that took off faster then I even imagined, although no where near a full time business I can see it growing into one if only I had the time!

First is my accounts, I always thought I had a business head and I know that its important to know the figures. I've got a sales day book and a purchase ledger which I then combine onto a spreadsheet which tells me my profit so far....not ideal...any ideas how to improve this? I was learning how to do double entry book keeping but I am unsure how to start this mid year...would I literally have to go back and do double book keeping for the whole year? What about the year before? (To expand on that I started my 'new business' in Oct but I have been selling £50-£100 monthly of something else) Is their anyway I could just restart from an end of the month?

Is it worth me getting a book keeper at this stage? I am getting in around £600 gross sales atm but I am currently spending all my spare time organizing my business instead of growing it... and I don't have anywhere near as many listings as I could/should have.

Second having the children....its hard. It takes me half an hour to get myself/kids organised...set up the double pram...get the kids in...basically just to get out the door to go to the post box is a 45min job ! I am thinking about employing a teenager to make some of my products to help out...is their any legal way I can do this where I can pay them out the business account and take it off my books?

whitewing

If you are at home full time and have the room, why don't you get an au pair? (I wouldn't normally advise for children under 5 years old). That could be a cheaper way of organising family life and keeping you relatively free as well as having someone to chat to and bounce ideas off.

They would normally work a certain number of hours a week. I would suggest going through an agency and checking references yourself.

Kayalana99

Thanks for reply,

If I could afford it I'd happily have a nanny in the house, perhaps even a childminder for the eldest a couple of half mornings - but I wouldn't be comfortable with having someone live here with us.

& child care isnt tax deductible i checked

dancingfairy

I would have thought a book keeper would be worth their weight in gold for you. They could help you to set up a system as well.
In relation to employing people, I don't know how it works but do you have a chamber of commerce or small business forum or something like that that could help you in terms of where and how to hire staff, how to comply with tax, ni etc?
df

dancingfairy

Oh HMRCs website looks pretty useful on how to register new staff, what you need to do to set up a business etc etc. One useful page is here:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/payerti/employee-starting/new-employee.htm
df

sequence

You can download all of your sales straight from ebay, or from paypal as a spreadsheet (CSV). You can download all records from paypal from when you started if you need to. You don't need hugely detailed accounts if you're just a sole trader and not vat registered. Will save you plenty of time typing it out if you download straight from ebay or paypal. I don't know if you use selling manager (don't waste money on selling manager pro, just use standard selling manager) on ebay but if you don't you can print all of your invoices and address labels in one go rather than doing them individually through the normal ebay interface. That might save you a bit of time. I know it takes about ten times longer to do my ebay parcels if there are kids around!

Kayalana99

sequence wrote: »

You can download all of your sales straight from ebay, or from paypal as a spreadsheet (CSV). You can download all records from paypal from when you started if you need to. You don't need hugely detailed accounts if you're just a sole trader and not vat registered. Will save you plenty of time typing it out if you download straight from ebay or paypal. I don't know if you use selling manager (don't waste money on selling manager pro, just use standard selling manager) on ebay but if you don't you can print all of your invoices and address labels in one go rather than doing them individually through the normal ebay interface. That might save you a bit of time. I know it takes about ten times longer to do my ebay parcels if there are kids around!

Hmmmmm is it actually necessary for me to keep every invoice on paper? I sell £1.50 items mainly so Id be printing off like 500 sheets...then if the business grows o_O

Will look into the CSV atm I am typing it all up...

sugarwalsh

Why not look into childcare? Surely if you are earning small amounts you would be eligible for tax credits? Send them for one day a week and make sure you do all your errands then. Book keeping could be done at night - or get someone to do it for you.

A friend of mine has a nanny come to the house - I think because she is registered she can claim tax credits. The Nanny has her own kid, my friend and her partner have a kid each - so 3 little ones. With Tax credits I think they only pay about £1 per hour each, so worth looking into?

Hats off to you - it's hard work, but it does get easier.

Megan

Auntie-Dolly

How many items do you post a month? It might be worth looking at the RM online business account and a daily collection.

sequence

Kayalana99 wrote: »

Hmmmmm is it actually necessary for me to keep every invoice on paper? I sell £1.50 items mainly so Id be printing off like 500 sheets...then if the business grows o_O

Will look into the CSV atm I am typing it all up...

No, it's not. Keep a digital copy though, just incase. What I meant was you can print off all of your address labels in one click. A lot of people still go through each ebay item individually, print the address / invoice then do the next one. Unless you're hand writing the address labels nooo...

phill99

The phrase that springs to mind is 'don't sweat the small stuff'. There are 3 key areas to running a business: getting the work, doing the work and getting paid for the work.

Of all three, the first one is critical. Allied to that is execution ( ie sending the stuff to customers). In your case, getting payment isn't an issue as you receive payment prior to dispatch of goods.

On that basis, your focus needs to be on developing and expanding your business.

The details of how much you get paid, in what quantiies etc are largely irrelevant. Not irrelevant in terms of the business but irrelevant in terms of the 'big picture'. You are evidently god at developing the business and that's what you, as a business owner, needs to concentrate on.

You would be wise to invest in the services of a book keeper. This will be far more effective than spending money on a course in double entry book keeping. Let the book keepers do what they are good at and you concentrate on developing and expanding your business. You might spend three of four hours trying to sort out your books and fret over how to invoice. An experienced book keeper will do this in an hour and know all the answers to your queries. You should spend the time developing, promoting and expanding your business.

Good luck.